POLICE BOSS: MAKE ZOMBIE DRUG LEGAL
Spice was safer when sold in shops, he says
THE rise of “zombie druggies” will be curbed by lifting bans on former legal highs, says a police boss.
The sight of users out of their minds on synthetic cannabis-style varieties such as Spice and Black Mamba is increasingly familiar in cities around Britain.
But North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner Arfon Jones said: “I don’t think they should have been criminalised in the first place.
“That’s the cause of the problem we’ve got now.”
He said the drugs were weaker and safer when traded in “head shops” where drug paraphernalia is sold.
He added: “Now it’s gone underground no one knows the strength and it’s causing a lot of difficulties.
“I believe the war on drugs was lost many years ago and we need a new approach to problematic drug use. I’ve felt for some time the current prohibitive stance is extremely damaging to individuals and communities.”
Spice and other so-called legal highs were banned in 2016 amid fears of harm to users who thought that, being legal, they were safe.
Previous bans against individual legal highs were dodged by some makers simply tweaking formulas.
Spice is known as “fake weed” due to its similarity to cannabis. Its chemicals attach themselves to nerve cells like the drug, but can have a far stronger effect. It can cause extreme anxiety and paranoia and put users in a catatonic zombie state. An epidemic of cocaine deaths has hit young people, said Blackburn Coroner Michael Singleton at the inquest into the drug-related death of Adam Cowell, 33, of Oswaldtwistle, Lancs.